It’s December 22nd, and today was beautiful. It rained this morning, keeping our world green and the trails amazing but by the time I was working on bikes, the sun was out in all its winter glory. It was even genuinely warm for an hour or two (sorry snow-sports lovers).
Today was Claire’s last day of school in 2023. There was apple cider and a movie, cleaning out desks and saying goodbye, and Happy New Year! to friends new and old. Both her teachers this year are excellent. Beyond excellent. We’ve won the teacher lottery almost every year that Claire’s been at school, and Nina and I are very grateful for that. Claire would do anything for them. Including, apparently, cleaning out the desks of two other kids who weren’t at school today, and cleaning out the cloakroom.
For anyone wondering at home, no, happily cleaning out other kids’ desks at school does not translate to whistling while you work at cleaning up your own room. That’s an event that always requires a pre-girding of the loins, which is apparently fairly universal amongst parents. I don’t have a leg to stand on as my workbench looks like, well, a workbench.
The last day of school in ’23 flowed into the last after-school-ride of ’23. Just a gentle jaunt on Mt. Seymour. Up to GSM so Penny could swap out some batteries on her Christmas lights we hung. If you haven’t been through Christmas Corners lately, Penny, Claire, and I made a pile of ornaments out of bike parts. You know, in case you needed a friendly little boost-me-up on your night ride.
All in all, it was a cruisy night. Plenty of forward motion but also plenty of chatting. About all the important things that aren’t soul-crushing – cats, riding bicycles, funny things kids at school do, past crashes, light placement. Also how awesome all our fellow travelers we crossed paths with were this afternoon-to-evening. It’s just a different group of people who use the forest after dark and I always feel like everyone I come across has my back once we have lights turned on.
There haven’t been many MEATengines pieces lately. I’m writing something about Paragon sliders. Three more Tunnel Talk pieces are half done. I have some photos of the repair work on my Waltworks V2, and I’m just waiting for paint and then my truculent beast will ride again. I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with long chainstays on a hardtail and talking about it. New Year – New Unit time is around the corner as well.
For now, if I don’t talk to you beforehand, Merry Christmas to you and yours. There’s a lot of fucky shit happening in the world right now – thousands of children being killed in Gaza, the scary reawakening of ‘appeasement’ as a political model as Putin continues to make war on Ukraine – and I know if it weren’t for my family, my close friends, and riding bikes in the forest it would all be too much for me.
And hey, if all that shit is getting you down definitely talk to someone about it. I can’t promise any of it will make sense – it doesn’t make sense to me – but at least get it off your chest. If you don’t have anyone to talk to, reach out. We’re all in this together.
It’s December 22nd, 2023. Single-speeds and rigid mountain bikes are still rad and combined they’re super-rad. MEATengines is still here. Even if I’ve been slack on updates as life battles the siren’s call of amazing trails that keeps seducing me into the woods.
Merry Christmas,